The Sharp Hook of Love (6 page)

“Today, my brother is the devil's vassal,” Anseau said. “His own bishop says it, so it must be truth.”

“Galon is calling everyone ‘the devil's vassal' except for me,” Abelard said. His voice held a plaintive edge.

“Oh, but everyone knows that you are the devil himself,” Anseau said.

Etienne took my hands with his soft, manicured ones and welcomed “Paris's famous woman scholar” to his home.

When I demurred, Anseau grunted and said he wished Agnes would apply herself to her studies with more diligence. “She thinks only of her wardrobe.” He gave his daughter a pointed glance, but she heard only Abelard's whispers into her ear. “And, unceasingly, of marriage.” Not marriage to “Pierre,” surely, I wanted to say. The Church would never allow it.

A servant blew the dinner horn and we gathered around the table, Anseau and Etienne on one bench with Agnes between them, and Abelard beside me—directly across from Agnes, who gave him wanton looks as we washed our hands, her face bright with suppressed laughter. My stomach tightened. I had at first declined Agnes's invitation, stunned as I was by Bernard's hateful sermon, and wanting time alone to ponder the tide of sentiment rising against women in the Church. But Abelard had convinced me to join the gathering, saying a friendship with Etienne might help me gain the position I coveted at Fontevraud. Now, watching Abelard cast amorous glances at the beautiful Agnes, I wished I had remained at home.

“Bernard possesses very little learning and disdains books completely,” Abelard said. “He actually boasts of his ignorance. ‘Everything I need to know, I learned in the fields and the woods,' he says. As if God did not give men minds for a reason.”

As the talk continued, I noticed that Abelard, who sat less than a hand's width away, had barely glanced at me. Yet, when he'd arrived at my uncle's house to fetch me, he hadn't been able to tear his gaze away.

“Heloise glows like a ruby in the sunlight, doesn't she, Jean?” he'd said to my uncle's servant.

Jean's eyes had narrowed in response. “A valuable jewel must be jealously guarded. She who makes herself a ewe will be eaten by the wolf.”

“I will keep a special watch for wolves tonight.” Abelard's
laughter had struck a false note through my uncle's great room—as it did now at Etienne's table, after he declared that philosophers lacked time for women.

“Unless, of course, she is the most brilliant scholar in Paris.” He smiled at me.

“No time for women, Pierre? I have seen how they flock around you, in love with your music and your blue eyes,” Agnes said. “Take care, Heloise—this man breaks hearts.”

“Has he broken yours?” I could not help asking.

“Many times,” Agnes said, giving Abelard a sly look—which he returned. His hand dropped under the table to brush mine, but I pushed it away. What had he written to me yesterday?
The burning flame of love compels me.
Even knowing that the letter was only an exercise, I had allowed myself to linger over the word
love
. I wanted to leap up and run from the table.

“My lessons with Heloise are never dull,” he told the Garlandes. “I would give my benefice to have her join my classes.” His knee brushed mine again. I moved my leg away.

“Why, then, don't you seek permission for me to attend the school?” I asked.

He shrugged. “One might as well try to teach an ass to sing as to convince Galon to mix the sexes in anything.”

Servants glided into the hall with bowls of soup and plates of bread. Abelard's hand dropped under the table to rest on his knee, his fingertips barely touching my leg and yet commanding all my thoughts.

“Galon is worse than Saint Augustine, frowning on carnal pleasures as though Christ had never enjoyed even a back scratching,” Agnes said.

“Or a woman's anointing his feet, then drying them with her hair,” I said.

“Or a cup of wine,” Etienne said, lifting his
henap
.

“Or two,” his brother said.

The servants replaced our soup with trenchers bearing salmon, lampreys, and bowls of buttered peas. As Abelard leaned forward to take some fish, his legs fell apart so that his left knee touched mine. My pulse quickened even as I moved away.

“Saint Augustine openly admitted his weakness for women,” Etienne said. “But who in the Church dares to acknowledge Galon's vices?”

“Let Galon incur the bishop of Chartres's displeasure and we would hear accusations soon enough,” I blurted, then blushed at my own irreverence.

As the others laughed, Abelard reached for bread at the same time as I, deliberately brushing my hand with his fingertips. Agnes lifted her eyebrows.

Abelard stretched his legs; Agnes giggled. I forbade myself even to glance down. Was he touching her foot with his? The bishop of Chartres had called the wrong man “womanizer,” it seemed.

The meal went on, lamb and beef and lettuces, pastries and cherries and fine white bread, and conversation that flowed as copiously as the wine: Guillaume of Poitiers's new, scandalous song, which Abelard performed to great merriment; the king's marriage to Adelaide of Maurienne, rumored to be quite ugly with a nose as large as a goose's beak; the declining health of the Amiens bishop Godfrey, with the men placing bets on the date of his death. I would have thrived on the
riposte
if not for Abelard. With him sitting beside me, his thigh pressing mine, his eyes on another woman, I had to force myself to listen. More than once, I reminded myself that others inhabited this room—this world—besides Abelard, Agnes of Garlande, and me.

O Abelard! The very name filled my body with yearning—to hear him whispering into my ear the words of love he had written
to me,
always to be loved more than anything
, and to feel his breath hot on my cheek, the slide of his palms around my waist, and, yes, even the press of his body against mine. Every night prompted sweet imaginings and restless turmoil, and, now, the pain like a knife in my stomach as he glinted his eyes at another girl.

“Of course King Louis opposes the reforms.” Etienne tore off a piece of bread. “The Church will do anything for wealth—even prevent clergymen from bequeathing their lands and titles to their sons.”

“He opposes the reforms because they are unreasonable,” Anseau said. “Forbidding bishops to marry was bad enough, a certain provocation to sin, for God bestowed urges upon men—but priests and canons, too? These so-called reforms tear families apart. They leave women without anyone to provide for them.”

“And think of their children,” Agnes said. “They will inherit nothing, not even their father's name. How will they marry? The poor things will have to join the abbey.” She shuddered. “They might as well send them to the prison. Abbeys should not be permitted to accept oblates—children! Heloise, what do you think? You grew up in the Royal Abbey at Argenteuil,
non
?”

I frowned at Abelard. What had he whispered into Agnes's ear? She smiled, expecting to hear me speak ill of my childhood home, I knew. In truth, I had never felt so glad to leave any place. On the day my uncle had arrived for me, only his restraining hand stopped me from running out the door.

Under the table, Abelard's hand slid off his leg so that the backs of his fingers touched my thigh. I cleared my throat and shifted, causing the dishes to clatter on the table. He placed his hand back on the tabletop.

As the servants brought in eel pies—my favorite dish, and delectably seasoned—the conversation turned to Robert of
Arbrissel, the founder of the Fontevraud Abbey, where my mother had worked. He had agreed to preach a sermon in Paris, Abelard announced, pulling my attention away from my meal. Robert, coming here! Surely my uncle would take me to hear him speak. Perhaps Robert might tell me something of my mother—including what I most wished to know: my father's name.

“Robert declined to preach in the Saint-Etienne Cathedral, but will speak in the city, instead,” Abelard said. “He said his message is meant not for the men of the cloister, but for all God's children, sinners as well as saints.”

“Robert has a particular fondness for sinners, I hear,” Anseau said. “Especially those of the fairer sex.”

“He has ceased the practice, admittedly bizarre, of sleeping among the women.” Abelard sent me a worried glance, noting my widened eyes. I had never heard of Robert's sleeping with the Fontevraud nuns. “His intentions were pure, at least. He did it to strengthen his resistance, he said.”

“Who among us believes that tale?” Anseau said with a snort. “Being born a cat, he pursues mice. And the women love him—even more than they love you, Pierre. Prostitutes, widows, beautiful virgins—they stream to Fontevraud to touch the hem of his filthy tunic. They liken him to John the Baptist with his long hair and ragged clothes. They wait in line to wash his dirty feet, then give him their coins and their adoration. What man would not take advantage?”

Having reached the limits of my endurance with Anseau and his winking pronouncements—how odious, to take such pleasure in others' misfortunes—I could hold my tongue no longer. “Women join the abbey to escape from men, not to pursue them,” I said, glaring.

“Our fair guest speaks the truth,” Etienne said, “which makes Robert's betrayal of these women all the more reprehensible.
They come to him in trust, and he uses them for his own pleasure—perhaps, yes, Pierre, only to tempt himself, although I agree with my brother that his tale is unlikely.”

“Three thousand followers, and most of them women,” Anseau said. “He must be a stallion in bed.”

“Think about what you are saying!” I cried, looking around the table in horror. What monstrous creatures were these people, passing judgment on the cruel world from their cocoon of velvet and silk? “You malign one of our holiest men, as well as the women who seek refuge with him. Where is your Christian love? You sound like the very reformists whom you despise.”

A long silence followed, during which everyone, including me, ate without so much as a murmur. Seeing all eyes cast downward, I realized that I had spoken too harshly, and without gratitude for my host's hospitality.

“Please forgive my outburst,” I said at last. “I should have controlled my temper.”

“There is no denying that Robert of Arbrissel's soft spot for women has gotten him into some trouble,” Etienne said.

“I thought his
hard
spot was the cause for concern,” Agnes said, every bit her father's daughter.

Everyone laughed again, except for me. What did these men or the spoiled Agnes know of the desperation of women's lives? I had seen it for myself at Argenteuil: women born to the highest rank as well as the lowest, repudiated by their husbands, replaced with wives younger, richer, more beautiful, more fertile—or, simply, new.

“Many of the women at Fontevraud are the discarded wives of clergymen, for whom you expressed sympathy moments ago,” I said. “Robert of Arbrissel provides them with shelter, food, and the solace of God's love. What have
you
done to help any of them?”

Abelard patted my arm, attempting to calm me, which infuriated me even more. He smiled, but with his lips closed, reminding me of my uncle's grimace when I had disgraced him before the bishop. My cheeks burned. I doubted that Abelard would ever bring me back to Etienne's house, or that, after this day, he would want to see me again at all.

“Heloise's mother was the first grand prioress of Fontevraud,” Abelard explained.

“Who was your mother, child?” Etienne said. When I told him, he brightened. “Hersende of Champagne? Hear that, Agnes? She is a Montmorency! On your father's side,” he said to me. I cringed inwardly, waiting for him to realize that I was far too young to be the daughter of Lord William of Montsoreau.

“My mother is a Montmorency,” Agnes said with a smile of delight. “I knew we shared a special bond.”

She stood and walked around the table, then held out her hands to me. “Cousin,” she said. I gave her a thin smile as she sat between Abelard and me.

“
Oui
, I can see the family resemblance: those large, dark eyes; that generous mouth,” she said. “You are a true Montmorency beauty.” As the men around the table regarded me, I felt myself blush. Of what consequence was the color of my eyes? God sees not our bodies, but the soul within.

Agnes tugged at one of my braids. “You have the family's dark hair, as well.
I
am the outcast in that regard. But where”—she pointed above my left eye—“where did you acquire that streak of white? It must have come from your mother,
non
?”

My mother's hair had glistened like spun gold—but instead of responding, I lowered my eyes.
Please, let her change the course of her conversation,
I prayed. Soon, someone must realize that I was not her uncle's daughter.

“I wonder how Canon Fulbert could be related to such an
intelligent
girl,” Anseau said.

“My uncle is not dull,
monsieur
,” I lied, daring to send him an admonishing glance.

He cocked one eyebrow. “Then why haven't we heard before about his illustrious sister? Whenever I've encountered Fulbert, he talks unceasingly about himself. A man so anxious to advance his position would certainly make that connection known. Wouldn't you agree, Brother?”

“Given his ambition, it does seem strange that he hasn't mentioned her,” Etienne said. “If Galon knew, Fulbert might be a bishop by now. What do you think, Pierre? You know Canon Fulbert the best.”

Everyone looked at Abelard, who shrugged. “Fulbert talks much,
oui
, but he reveals little.” Agnes burst into laughter, falling against Abelard's arm. Grinning, he amended, “He reveals little about himself, I intended to say.”